The present invention relates to a system (method and apparatus) for using xe2x80x9ctrading cardsxe2x80x9d interactively through an electronic network, such as the Internet.
The present invention utilizes trading cards in interactive, on-line game playing, in a way which heightens interest in the cards, the associated electronic venues, and the actual sport or theme represented by the cards.
For the purposes of the present disclosure, the term xe2x80x9ctrading cardxe2x80x9d shall mean a physical card, made of cardboard, plastic or the like, a xe2x80x9cvirtualxe2x80x9d card, presented as an image to the user by electronic and/or optical means, or some other physical substrate or virtual image, which bears text and/or graphic information about a certain a sport (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc.), for which the player""s statistics and current actual performance are known.
The trading card industry, currently dominated by sports cards, has existed for over 100 years and has seen significant changes over that period. Initially popularized by cigarette companies, a number of producers of trading cards exist. The primary producers of sports trading cards are Topps (topps.com), Fleer (fleer.com), and Upper Deck (upperdeck.com). Many other producers also exist, and the themes of their trading cards are not limited to sports.
The trading card industry has become extremely competitive. Over the years, it has embraced new printing technologies, new themes, new sports, new packaging ideas, and other innovations such as actual player autographs and embedding small fragments of game-used equipment in the cards, to achieve competitive advantage. The industry has not, however, significantly successfully embraced the new electronic networking or Internet technologies in its search for innovation and competitive advantage.
One use of the Internet involving so-called electronic cards or xe2x80x9ce-cardsxe2x80x9d, allows a card holder to visit a world-wide-web site, enter a code number from a special, limited-production sports trading card, and learn whether he or she is entitled to a prize or an xe2x80x9cupgradedxe2x80x9d card. Another use of the Internet allows collectors to purchase xe2x80x9cvirtualxe2x80x9d cards which are held by the producer. Since pristine condition is generally required for a card to maintain its maximum monetary value, trading card companies have offered a service whereby a collector can purchase the xe2x80x9cdeedxe2x80x9d to a card on-line. The card is retained in an electronic xe2x80x9cvaultxe2x80x9d for safekeeping. The deeded card can then later be delivered on demand to the owner, or more likely, traded or sold to another collector (without the need to actually physically possess the card).
A number of other electronic sports card trading services and secondary trading markets exist as well. Trading cards (sports and otherwise) are routinely bought and sold on electronic auction sites.
One known set of baseball trading cards has the added feature of being part of a role-playing game, where each card owner/participant can be the manager of a baseball team. A pretend baseball game can be played with the aid of a multi-sided die using statistics listed on each trading card to determine the progress of the game. These cards have interest both as trading cards and as part of the role-playing game.
Over the past 20 years or so, various sports (beginning with baseball) have spawned a now-popular pastime known as xe2x80x9crotisseriexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cfantasyxe2x80x9d sports leagues. While there are a great number of different variations in the concept, generally, participants (known as xe2x80x9cmanagersxe2x80x9d) select actual players from across all professional teams of a given sport, and record the rosters of these xe2x80x9cfantasyxe2x80x9d teams on paper or electronically. By utilizing a player""s actual results during actual professional sports contests, fantasy team managers accrue points as well.
For example if a fantasy baseball team manager has selected Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees and Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants to be on his or her fantasy team, and if Jeter bats in 2 runs and Bonds bats in 3 runs, in one version of the game that manager would score 5 points, based upon the actual real time performance of the players. There are innumerable variations of scoring and complexity among these leagues, and the example just stated has been simplified for purposes of explanation.
The rise of the Internet has made operating and participating in fantasy sports leagues much easier and much more popular. Many sites exist (some cost free and some which require a participant to pay for the service) that tabulate all of the statistics on a real time or near-real time basis so that enthusiasts can always see how their fantasy team is performing, compared with other teams which might be constructed by their friends, colleagues, or strangers. In general, each player is given a dollar value and, through pari-mutuel trading activity, their values vary. Each player starts with a certain amount of fantasy money in order to staff the team rosters through either a xe2x80x9cdraftxe2x80x9d of players or through pari-mutuel purchase.
In addition to the above, the following U.S. patents disclose various games and specific uses of trading cards:
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,200,216 to Peppel entitled xe2x80x9cElectronic Trading Cardxe2x80x9d discloses a trading card with an electronic, updateable storage medium, on the card itself. The updatable medium is physically similar in many respects to that used on the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority""s xe2x80x9cMetroCardxe2x80x9d. The card stores electronic information on this medium which includes xe2x80x9cmultimedia dataxe2x80x9d such as pictures, sound and text, as well as various other items of information, as desired. These cards may be sold to, and thereafter traded by collectors who may also store their unique password on the updateable medium. These cards are said to be useful for game playing.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,411,259 to Pearson for a xe2x80x9cVideo Sports Game System Using Trading Cardsxe2x80x9d discloses a closed-system video game that uses both human and machine-readable data printed on trading cards. The cardholder can play a game with the cards, either alone or with other players.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,173 to Crowder discloses a xe2x80x9cbaseball gamexe2x80x9d which is played with baseball type player trading cards. The game uses physical baseball cards, a die and a deck of standard playing cards. The trading cards are divided into teams, each with a pitcher. The die is tossed to determine which matrix (player or pitcher) is used and a standard playing card is selected to determine which cell in the matrix creates the play.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,407,204 to Meyer, III discloses a board game for simulating the game of baseball in which baseball trading cards are utilized as playing pieces. The game includes a board having a baseball diamond pictured thereon and a plurality of cardholders into which baseball trading cards may be positioned. A deck of pitcher cards provides a random pitch to a player at bat, such as a strike, ball, or hit, and a deck of action cards provides a random result of the batter""s action, such as a hit, out, or homerun. The game pieces are then moved in accordance with the rules of conventional baseball.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,533,124 to Smith et al. discloses an electronic trading card system wherein trading card software is stored on a removable medium, such as a CD-Rom, in a copy protected form. The trading card software includes trading card data and an executable computer program. Each removable medium contains trading card data that is specific to a particular individual or character or any person, place or thing. The trading card software is interactive. The computer user is able to select one of a number of predetermined displays by selecting interactivity areas on each display.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,689,561 to Pace and U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,656 to Pace disclose a computer-based trading card collection system using CD-ROMs. The collection items (or more specifically their unlocking keys) are contained in various floppy disks. With the disks inserted into the computer system, the icons of the collection items on the disks appear on the computer monitor. By (double) clicking on the icon, the unlocking key unlocks the corresponding collection item in the CD-Rom program into the hard drive and at the same time the unlocking key is rendered inoperative. A generally reverse process is used to lock the collection item relative to the hard drive and to render the unlocking key operative. The user collects the collection items by unlocking, using a number of floppy disks, the locks in his/her CD-Rom program, which contains the corresponding locks for all of the collection items in the set. When the entire set, or a predetermined subset thereof, has been collected, the CD-Rom program allows the user to play an interactive game related to the collection items.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,731 to Shepherd discloses electronic trading cards composed of a plurality of individual trading card files encoded on a single data storage device, such as a computer diskette or laser disk, each with an associated deciphering key code for deciphering encrypted data in the individual trading card files, and each with a file transfer code which allows individual trading card files to be transferred from one collector to another, without the transferring collector retaining a copy for his or her own use after a transfer is made. The electronic trading cards are organized and viewed using an electronic binder that provides full-featured database functions such as sorting, graphic presentation and the like. The data storage device includes a copy protection code which allows the files on the data storage device to be copied a fixed number of times (e.g., once or twice).
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,779,549 to Walker et al. and the U.S. Pat. No. 6,224,486 to Walker et al. disclose a xe2x80x9cdatabase driven online distributed tournament systemxe2x80x9d in which a number of remotely located players participate in a tournament through input/output devices connected to a central controller which manages the tournament. The game playing method includes the steps of (a) uniquely identifying a player communicating with the central controller via an associated input/output device; (b) responding to payment of an entry fee by the player for allowing the player to participate in a tournament occurring within a fixed time window via an associated input/output device; (c) accessing a database to store in the database player information that is generated as the player participates in the tournament; and (d) awarding the player a prize for achieving a pre-established performance level in the tournament.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,660 to James et al. discloses a multi-player computer game that is played over a computer network. When the game is played via the Internet, players are able to input moves and be apprised of the state of the game using basic input/output functions of their web browser. This game does not make use of trading cards.
The U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,399 to Baker et al. discloses the use of client and server software, communicating with each other via the Internet, to create and maintain a multi-user role-playing game. The virtual world of the game is presented to each user by means of text and dimensional audio. The software reacts to user inputs to make the virtual world change according to user actions.
Finally, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,415 to Blumberg discloses a xe2x80x9ccorporate and entertainment management interactive system using a computer networkxe2x80x9d. The system provides a game of corporate, business or sports management. For instance, in sports management, the data of a player, together with a historical database related to that player, and decisions are communicated between a central database processing resource and at least one remote party. A remote party is permitted to access the database and access designated data from the database. Voting, and other management of a player, team or business is possible in substantially real time or near real time by the remote party. The remote user can vote on financial compensation for a player, a coach or a team and/or for a bonus for a player, team or game. Similarly, hiring and firing decisions can be made.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a method, and also apparatus, which utilizes trading cards in an interactive, online game through an electronic network, such as the Internet.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a game which can heighten interest in sports trading cards as well as in the actual sport or theme represented by and depicted on the cards.
These objects, as well as further objects which will become apparent from the discussion that follows, are achieved, in accordance with the present invention, by a game playing method which uses a plurality of trading cards, each identifying a xe2x80x9cgame playerxe2x80x9dfor a specific sport and having a unique identifier of alphanumeric characters associated therewith.
As used hereinafter, the term xe2x80x9cgame playerxe2x80x9d is intended to mean and include a real, live person designated (e.g., depicted) by a trading card, who is actively engaged in playing a sport.
In the game, a set of physical trading cards is offered for sale to collectors. Various groups of these cards may designate the same game player but each card in each group has a different and unique identifier.
At least the game playing rights, if not the physical chattel itself, of a subset of this set of trading cards, is then purchased by each of a plurality of card collectors. The game players designated by the cards of each subset form a game playing xe2x80x9cteamxe2x80x9d to be managed by the respective card collector.
Thereafter, the collectors/card owners register with a game service provider selected ones of the cards from his/her subset of cards, thereby to place the game players designated by these selected cards xe2x80x9cin playxe2x80x9d.
Next, current information about each game player in play is determined by the game service provider and the status of the game between collectors, whose game players are in play, is advanced in accordance with the current information about each game player in play and in accordance with the rules of the game.
For continued play, each collector can xe2x80x9cmanagexe2x80x9d his/her team by changing the selected cards which are registered with the game service provider in an attempt to improve the chances of winning the game or future games.
In its most basic form, the present invention thus combines uniquely identified trading cards with specially designed electronic services which may include Internet web sites.
Collectors of these specially identified cards (which could be distributed as special xe2x80x9cinsertxe2x80x9d cards in ordinary packs or as packs containing only this type of card) are encouraged to enter the unique alphanumeric identifiers of their cards via the Internet (or other computer network), thus xe2x80x9cregisteringxe2x80x9d them with a game service operated either by the sports card producer itself or a third party service provider. Once a requisite number of cards is registered, the collector can play interactive games against acquaintances or other unknown collectors around the world.
Since each card number is unique, and describes a particular card (for example, in a baseball embodiment of this invention, there may be 1,000 xe2x80x9cuniquexe2x80x9d Barry Bonds cards in a given series), it is possible for the computer service to verify that the card is actually held by the collector who has registered it. Such registration could be changed as the result of a trade between collectors, but in no case can more than one collector have the same unique card registered simultaneously.
Interactive games such as fantasy sports teams can be played easily and with much enjoyment by collectors of these cards. Continuing with one version of the baseball embodiment as an example, once a collector has amassed enough cards to have at least one player for each of the nine positions of a baseball team, and has registered them with the game service, that collector can begin following the results of his or her virtual baseball team. The statistics for this team are automatically calculated and tabulated by the service (this facility exists today for a great many fantasy sports leagues), so that the collector can review the standings of his or her team throughout the actual baseball season, making trades and modifying the player line-up of the team, acting as a manager of the virtual team. Collectors can trade with each other by changing the registered xe2x80x9cownerxe2x80x9d of each card on-line. Divisions of teams can be constructed at random or by affiliations. For example, classmates at school could construct their own divisions on-line. Co-workers could create a division for their company. Competition could be for fun or for sponsored prizes as well.
Baseball and other fantasy sports leagues thus contemplated by the present invention. As may be seen, the present invention references the real time performance of currently active sports players.
A number of embodiments are possible that allow interactive gaming based on the concept of unique card identifiers. Automated methods for inputting the unique identifiers, such as using barcodes and inexpensive card readers through which the cards may be xe2x80x9cswipedxe2x80x9d to register their numbers, are contemplated by the present invention although the invention is in no way limited to the use of such techniques.
For a full understanding of the present invention, reference should now be made to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments of the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.